Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

I have a dream …
… that one day people can easily get from Point A to Point B here in their Caribbean homelands.

Is that so fanciful?

Is it so “pie in the sky” to think that our Caribbean communities can organize, plan and execute infrastructure projects so that people can safely travel by road, mitigating traffic congestion, and get to their destinations to live, work and play?

“Pie in the sky” or just “sky” is the key reference here. This commentary asserts that some of the congested streets in the Caribbean member-states can find relief by building “skyways” and overpasses; and they can be Toll Roads. (Considers  these samples-examples)

This vision was always part of the roadmap, as described in the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. This roadmap introduces the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) as a super-national entity with Port Authority functionalities, to build highways, bridges, tunnels, docks and other Public Works (infrastructure) to facilitate the societal engines (economics, security and governance) of the Caribbean region. The book describes that transportation solutions must be embedded into any plan to elevate Caribbean society. See this reference to Turnpike-Toll Roads in the book (Page 205) in this advocacy:

10 Ways to Improve Transportation
#4 – Turnpike: Land Highways
The CU will fund and build limited-access “toll ways” to expedite transportation of people and goods. The tolls will be rebated as incentives for carpools, ride-share and zero-emissions promotion. “Build it and they will come” is the mantra for putting in the highways away from the current population centers. Overall, every densely populated community should have one North-South and one East-West artery.

Imagine existing roads, but with additional lanes that are elevated above the existing roads. This would indeed provide solutions and relief to the current traffic congestion.

Questions: What is missing today? Why is it that the local Caribbean governments (and other Third World countries) are not doing this now?

Answer: Money!

This is the focus of this commentary: Funding Toll Roads.

How do we fund the construction of such Toll Roads?

The book’s excerpt states that “the CU will fund and build”; but the focus is on raising the money, not “swinging the hammer”. This is the dream, or Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), to be able to generate capital for Public Works projects. Another excerpt from the Go Lean book details the Art and Science of municipal financing; see these summaries here (Page 175):

10 Ways to Impact Public Works
# 2 – Union Atlantic Turnpike
The Union Atlantic Turnpike is a big initiative of the CU to logistically connect all member-states for easier transport of goods and passengers. There are many transportation arteries and facilities envisioned for the Turnpike: Toll Roads, Railroads, Ferry Piers, and Navy Piers. The CU plan calls for underwater tunnels, causeways and bridges in narrow straits where the economics dictate. While some CU states already have railroad installations, there is no uniform management, oversight or standards. The CU will regulate the railroad industry to complement the other transportation modes to offer integrated solutions. This approach will allow the conformity and logistics so that passengers/cargo can efficiently move to trains, ferries, pipeline (cargo only) to highway-bound buses/trucks… and vice-versa.

# 10 – Capital Markets
A Single Market and Currency Union will allow for the emergence of viable capital markets for stocks and bonds (public and private), thereby creating the economic engine to fuel growth and development. This forges financial products for “pre” disaster project funding (drainage, levies, dykes, sea walls) and post disaster recovery (reinsurance sidecars).

There are role models for us to emulate. Here is one example; we have been to New York City; we have studied the history and the progress of their transportation-focused Public Works. We have even published previous commentaries on the Port Authority of New York – New Jersey and on the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s MetroCard payment system; (also see VIDEO’s – one factual and one satirical – in the Appendices below). So the lesson-learned is to have the organizational structure so as to fund the construction and management of transportation projects, such as Toll Roads; consider the case of the George Washington Bridge (picture above) that connects New York and New Jersey. See this historic milestone in the timeline:

The New York City Planning Commission approved the George Washington Bridge improvement in June 1957,^[147] and the Port Authority allocated funds to the improvement that July.^[148][149] – Source: – Wikipedia.

Just like that! One group of experts made the plan and another group of experts arranged the funding – this is an example of a technocracy, and a role model for us to emulate here in the Caribbean region.

This is entry 3-of-6 for the March 2020 monthly series from the movement behind the Go Lean book. This submission considers the mechanics of funding Public Works projects. The strategy is simple: each transportation project will apply tolls, to generate ongoing revenues. When there are thousands and millions of journeys, and a toll is charged every time, then the economics finally make sense.

The full catalog of the series for this month – under the BHAG theme – is listed as follows:

1. BHAG – The Audacity of Hope – Yes, we can!
2. BHAG – Regional Currency – In God We Trust
3. BHAG – Infrastructure Spending … finally funding Toll Roads
4. BHAG – One Voice – Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Stance
5. BHAG – Outreach to the World – Why Not a Profit Center
6. BHAG – Netflix, Hulu, CBS, Peacock ==> Caribbean Media

The subject of Infrastructure is a Big Deal for the consideration of reforming or transforming the Caribbean region. The premise of the Go Lean roadmap is that the leverage of the 30 member-states and 42 million people will allow for Public Works initiatives that are bigger and better than any single (one) member-state alone. “Toll Roads” is one such example, though only a subset of the planned Union Atlantic Turnpike. The plan is for the Turnpike Authority to design and facilitate one North-South and one East-West highway as applicable in each island or coastal-state.

Yes, the highways will be Toll Roads; that charges fees for each ride. The “small pennies add up to millions” over time. This funding mechanism of the Turnpike Authority allows present infrastructure investments based on those future revenues; think bonds and loans. Look again at the New York-New jersey Port Authority example; see their gross revenues here from a recent year (2012), as reported in a previous blog-commentaries – ‘Cannot Break Up the Port Authority’ from August 20, 2014:

PANYNJ Revenues / Profits

TOTAL AVIATION: +$2.5 BILLION

Airport	Profit
JFK	+$990 million
LaGuardia	+$273 million
Newark	+$1.3 million
Teterboro, Stewart, heliports	-$65 million

TOTAL BRIDGE AND TUNNEL: -$537 MILLION*

Bridge/Tunnel	Profit
GW Bridge	+$1.3 billion
Lincoln Tunnel	+167 million
Holland Tunnel	+$141 million
Port Authority Bus Terminal	-$479 million
PATH	-$2.3 billion

TOTAL PORT COMMERCE: -$755 MILLION*

Port	Profit
Port Newark	-$317 million
Port Jersey	-$184 million
Howland Hook	-$160 million
Brooklyn Marine   Terminal	-$27 million

TOTAL WORLD TRADE CENTER: -$3.1 BILLION
GRAND TOTAL: -$2.5 BILLION

The total shows the authority doesn’t generate enough from tolls, fees and grants to cover its costs. It borrows to cover the shortfall.
*Total includes other entities not listed here.

Source: Phase II Report to the special committee of Port Authority’s board, prepared by consulting firm Navigant in September 2012. 

All these revenues for the PANYNJ are used to “Service Debt”, make loan payments or pay-off bonds that funded these projects over the decades. The purpose of the Port Authority is “not to make a profit per se”, but rather to facilitate the infrastructure for the regional communities, so that the people (citizens) can successfully live, work and play. This is a Good model for us!

This theme of Caribbean infrastructure projects have been elaborated in many other previous Go Lean commentaries; see a sample list here:

The goal of these projects are not just to alleviate traffic congestion. No, it is bigger than that. The goal is to connect the people and places of the Caribbean region, better. This is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, but this is conceivable, believable and achievable.

To recap, there is reform: mitigate traffic congestions by building bigger, better roads, maybe even adding skyways and overpasses …

… and there is transform: deploying alternative transit options: light rail, unmanned people-movers, busways, and even bicycle lanes and safe-ways.

This is the Way Forward for Caribbean society. This is how we will make our homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accidence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

 xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

  xxv. Whereas the legacy of international democracies had been imperiled due to a global financial crisis, the structure of the Federation must allow for financial stability and assurance of the Federation’s institutions. To mandate the economic vibrancy of the region, monetary and fiscal controls and policies must be incorporated as proactive and reactive measures. These measures must address threats against the financial integrity of the Federation and of the member-states.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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Appendix VIDEO – The Port of New York and New Jersey – https://youtu.be/7XTi2oyPs2k

Port Authority New York & New Jersey
Posted February 20, 2019 – The Port of New York & New Jersey is the largest port on the U.S. East Coast and the third largest in the U.S. The Port plays an important role in getting goods to the region and to key inland markets while also contributing to the local communities we inhabit and our region.

http://www.portnynj.com

• Category: Science & Technology

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Appendix VIDEO – New York’s Port Authority: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) – https://youtu.be/44fCfJQV7yQ

LastWeekTonight

Posted August 3, 2014 – Locked in a dispute with Fishs Eddy, New York’s Port Authority wants to regain control of its own image. John Oliver wants to help them make it happen.

• Category: Entertainment